MINING IN ONTARIO
IAMGOLD
takes the autonomous route
Côté JV project will be Canada’s first autonomous open pit gold mine By Magda Gardner
W
ith construction underway at the gold project in northern Ontario, roughly halfway between Timmins and Sudbury and 20 km southwest of Gogama, Iamgold is working to develop Ontario’s first autonomous open pit mine at the site. This involves plans for fully autonomous drills and trucks, with manned loading and support equipment. The project – a 70/30 joint venture with Japan-based Sumitomo Metal Mining – has an estimated mine life of 18 years, based on a 2018 feasibility study. After receiving key permits related to impacts on fish habitats and tailings management last June, Iamgold announced that it would be proceeding with the construction of Côté in July and held a ground-breaking ceremony in September. First gold is expected in the second half of 2023, with full production expected by mid-2024. “We are building a mine to be around for twenty-five, thirty years, so we are not building a mine of 1970, we are looking to build the mine of 2030,” Gordon Stothart, Iamgold’s president and CEO, said in a January interview with CMJ. The Toronto-based company already has autonomous drilling capability at some of its other mines, such as the Essakane FEBRUARY/MARCH 2021
Site plan for the Côté gold JV, in northern Ontario. CREDIT: IAMGOLD
open pit in Burkina Faso, with rigs moving between holes on a pattern autonomously. In addition to autonomous drilling, Côté will also employ autonomous technology to hauling; the autonomous system will figure out the appropriate destination for mining trucks, based on the type of material being loaded (ore versus waste). In terms of safety for the system planned for Côté, Stothart says that, with the press of a button, anybody will be able shut down the whole system, if required. Iamgold’s plans for the site include an ultimate pit that would be approximately 1,600 metres long, 1,250 metres wide and up to 500 metres deep. Implementation from the get-go In terms of the rationale behind the choice to use autonomous technology at Côté, Stothart notes that the time to make decision to use this type of machinery is at the outset of a project. For instance, in terms of training, the workforce will only need technician-level training specific to autonomous equipment. Stothart also explained that while autonomous or remote capability has been available for some of the larger pit trucks for over 30 years, it’s taken a long time to implement. Reasons include the cap-
ital investments required and that, once the decision is made, a company is locked into it for the life of the mine. “We looked around and we (saw that) the technology was becoming mature with some very positive implementations in Australia and Chile, and starting to come into Canada,” he said. As part of its on-the-ground research on autonomous mining units, members of Iamgold’s technical team travelled to operating sites already using autonomous technology: this included mines in Chile and Australia, as well as the Fort Hill oilsands mine in Alberta. The amenability of pit drills and trucks to automation is related to the types of jobs done by these units, which do not require a lot of onboard control, unlike front-end loaders. The automation of equipment brings with it several potential benefits, Stothart says. These include reduced maintenance costs, as the units are continuously operating at their optimal levels, as well as increased availability and a detailed operating record. “We don’t have shift change, we don’t have lunch hour, we are not shutting down equipment because the radio or the
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